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Actually, all the old relational texts talk about select * from employees (plural) because they didn’t have aliases for table names in queries.

I agree that when you use aliases for multiple tables when you use (Oracle, non-standard SQL joins) that it looks prettier, but you can also do that with plural table names.

Select employee.name manager.name from employee, manager where employee.manager_id = manager.id

But it doesn’t matter that much when you use the traditional join syntax:

Select employees.name, managers.name from employees left outer join managers as manager on employees.manager_id = managers.id

Still I prefer singular table names, just disagree that it was data people who preferred singular and why.

Of course, with aliases you can return the exact name you want with aliases:

Select e.name as employee, m.name as manager from employees e, managers m where e.manager_id = m.id



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